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Mothers and Daughters: Stepmothers and Mother Nature

In this week’s Episode of Mad Men (512 “Commissions and Fees”) all eyes are on Lane Pryce. His desperate act—hanging himself in his office after Don Draper demands his immediate resignation following the discovery of a forged check—represents a dark turn for the show. When Joan Harris discovers the body, we see Don looking on in agony, and we can only imagine his guilt. But Don is not responsible; Lane chose to end his own life—and to do so in a very angry and very public way. His suicide stands as an angry communication to the wife and partners he feels have disappointed him.

And since everyone who owns a television seems to be blogging about Lane’s tragedy, my focus will be on Sally Draper and her complicated mother/daughter/stepmother triangle.

For months we have watched Sally vent about her mother Betty to her stepmom Megan; she complains of being misunderstood and ill treated in a contemptuous, lip-curling way—as only a Tween girl can. When Betty mentions an upcoming family ski trip, Sally stomps her little white go- go boot and refuses to go. So, Betty sends her to Don’s, where she spends the day with her stepmother. At a ladies’ lunch they engage in girl talk, and you can almost hear her adolescent brain spinning, “My mother is sooooo annoying! Megan, is so much cooler.” Sally emulates her fashion choices, and seeks her advice on everything from boyfriends to dealing with Betty.

For most of the season it has appeared that the almost- teen prefers Megan over her mother--until the intervention of another maternal presence, Mother Nature: when Sally begins to menstruate while on a date with Glen Bishop at the Museum of Natural History, she panics. So she flees — not to Megan, but to Betty; in fact she hops straight into a cab and doesn’t stop running until she arrives at the Frances doorstep in Westchester County.

What is going on between Sally and Megan, Sally and Betty, and Megan and Betty? “These are complicated relationships,” says Wednesday Martin, PhD., cultural anthropologist and Author of Stepmonster: a new look at how stepmothers think and why they act the way they do (2008 Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). “Research and clinical data indicate that relationships between teen girls and their stepmothers are the most challenging in the stepfamily system.”

The stepfamily drama makes sense when you think about it; Sally’s identity is emerging. Like any adolescent she is trying to figure out how to act and whom to be. This involves separating psychologically from her parents, and especially her mother. While always a complicated and difficult process, separation and identity development are particularly fraught when there are multiple persons and households involved.

Clearly the mother/daughter/stepmother triangle has not been easy for the Draper family to navigate. In the penultimate episode this season, when Sally runs home to Betty we see a dynamic that is common in re-partnership with children post divorce: while stepmom is a person you can talk to and go to, sometimes for things that are too uncomfortable to discuss with parents (sex, drugs, etc), there is a delicate balance and there are strong feelings of loyalty. Children still love their parents first and foremost.

So, though it seems confusing that Sally disparages her mother in the presence of her stepmother, before running to her mom in the throes of an adolescent crisis, it makes sense psychologically. Sally probably feels like she has to choose: it is Don and his new wife Megan, or Betty. Liking one means you cannot like the other, in fantasy. This presents a “loyalty bind,” according to Martin: “Kids often feel they can only like one parent at a time post divorce. So one household is good and the other is bad. Then they switch. It can be dizzying for the adults involved, and tremendously confusing for the child. Sally Draper first turns her stepmother into the good object, rejecting her mother. But she runs to Betty at menstruation because Betty is her mother. She always will be. Kids almost always love their parents more deeply than they do stepparents. Step-parents are not parents; for Sally, like children everywhere, her mother will always be her mother.”

Betty and Sally’s mother daughter relationship is clearly fraught—it is an ambivalent roller coaster of love–hate, compassion, and provocation like no other. No one pushes Sally’s buttons like her mother. Yet, she is there in Sally’s moment of need. The writers got that one right.

Stephanie Newman, PhD, is the author of Mad Men on the Couch: Analyzing the Minds of the Men and Women of the hit TV show, which can be purchased from Barnes & Noble, Indie Bound, and Amazon.

I haven't had a chance to watch the episode yet, but the blurb for your blog entry on the PT home page has given away a major plot point. Please change it so no one else has the episode spoiled for them!!

Apologize for the length here, but if anyone has the fortitude to read through and offer advice I'd really appreciate it.

My ex-husband and I divorced with my daughter was just 2; he moved in with his current wife (#3) almost immediately and they married shortly thereafter. She immediately quit her job and devoted all of her energy to being super-mom. Volunteering at school, sucking up to all the other parents and completely trashing me. Her over-functioning left me no room to participate. I always felt that my presence was unwanted by teachers and other parents because SM was (over)doing everything. I couldn't compete and my presence wasn't wanted.

I didn't have their money and had to work 50 hours a week and be the best Mom I could within that constraint. I had no idea that I was being gossiped about, but thought something was wrong when I felt hostility from teachers and parents the first time we'd met. I later found that she told people I had drinking and drug problems (not true -- I have mastocytosis and she knows it).

SM went to work on my daughter with the same energy, and I didn't know what to do -- you're not supposed to tell the child what's going on, you're not supposed to bash the ex. All I could do was try to hang in there and wait for her to grow up and see what's going on.

Now things are very good financially for me, and I've shared the wealth with my daughter. I think of things she'd like and give them to her just for fun. I'd take her to the concerts she liked (when she was younger) and buy her tickets for them to go with her friends (when she was older). She liked an art deco necklace in a museum; I bought all the parts and made her a replica myself.

But I'm just an afterthought with her. For example, this Christmas I spent hundred on things she loved (she was really happy getting them), and she bought a pound of coffee and some truffles for me and my husband. I rarely drink coffee and I don't like chocolate. It's like they are her real family and we are just unwelcome obligations. The last straw came when she was home for winter break and spent almost no time with us. I planned a nice dinner, with all of her faverites, and she said she had other plans and wouldn't be seeing us before she left (this after spending ten days straight at her dad's). I said that I was hurt be this, and her response was that she didn't like dealing with my drama. She left without saying goodbye and has not spoken to me since. Not even when my best friend (who she was also close to) died in January. I dread my upcoming birthday, waiting for her to call and knowing that she won't.

I've stopped doing things for her (other than paying her tuition) and chasing her. I learned from dating that you can't make someone care about you, and all you can do is cut your losses and salvage your self-respect. Another (better) person eventually comes along. But another daughter won't come along. I'm desperately sad. And tired of hearing stepmom chirp at the tennis club about how wonderful her relationship is with my daughter. She's heading up for a visit right now.

I could have written your letter word for word. The good news is that as an adult, she began to reach out to me since the birth of my grandchildren. The bad news is that she seems incapable of intimacy with me, which I believe is due to a conflict of loyalty within her and ingrained expectations of my ex- and the stepmother. She continues doing things that indicate to me that she is angry with me and I should not get too close, yet at the same time, they demonstrate that I still matter to her. I feel terrible for her. She is doing a wonderful job raising my grandchildren; I hope the conflict ends with us.